something to write home about

More often than I care to admit the opening sentence of the rough draft to my column reads, “What should I write about this week?”
Some weeks the answer is easy. An appalling or ridiculous news event screams for comment. Occasionally an idea I have been mulling over for a while finally falls together.
And then there are the other weeks. The weeks when I begin writing down the weeks events, everything that I like or don’t like, and any other passing thoughts until a theme emerges – all I have to do is trim away the excess.
I tried that this week. I came up with one garage sale excursion with a couple grandkids and their aunt. The grandkids studied every toy, agonizing over each item before they pulled out their nickels and dimes. Their aunt debated her own purchases before piling them in the back of the van. I whipped through every sale until I found one with a stack of cross stitch magazines. While I carefully perused each one the kids watched cartoons on the TV, which was also for sale.
By 9:30 a.m. I was ready to quit.
They weren’t.
I could not believe it. I take them along on a couple garage sale shopping sprees and my direct descendants become garage-sale-shop-a-holics just like me.
“Okay, two more,” I relented, “and then we have to get back to the house.”
They grumbled a little bit but they assured me they really could stop any time.
It was personally insightful morning, but hardly worth a whole column.
Then I scanned the newspapers and concluded there is nothing new under the sun. Same ole stuff with the same ole arguments from the same ole people. Punch in a topic, a political viewpoint and write the line of argument which agrees with it.
Sometimes pets take up space in my column. But since the cat has been naughty this last week, I am not writing about it, except to say the exchange student related how it charged down the hall to him, stopped, stared at him, left and returned again at a gallop to stare up at him.
I perused a few topics I have tucked back to consider at a later date.
Only this sentence intrigued me today. It is from in an old e-mail from PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals): “I dream of a day when animals will be respected as other nations, with their own languages and cultures, and when we will be able to hold our heads up high and call ourselves truly civilized because we will have stopped exploiting them.”
Animals have their own nation? As in – move over France, the United Nation ambassador from the Nation of Elephants needs more space at the table? As in – would someone please plug in the earphones and show Ambassador Elephant how to connect with the translating room? As in that kind of nation?
Surely not. I only say that because, not too long after we got that e-mail there was a wire story about elephants being captured from a reserve in Swaziland and sent to the San Diego Zoo. Swaziland officials said if they didn’t ship them out, they would have to kill them. The country could not sustain the population on the reserve. PETA objected to the reassignment of elephants. PETA said the elephants would prefer to be dead than sent to the zoo. But, PETA representatives in never said anything about whether the elephant ambassador preferred to be dead than jailed.
Column potential for sure, but I couldn’t find an elephant or their phone number in time to ask them for their input on the topic.
However, if any elephant wants to drop by Saturday, we could chat while we check out the garage sales. Even if we don’t find a few bargains for a quarter or two, it will give me something to write about in next week’s column.